# TO THE PRESIDIUM OF THE MOSCOW SOVIET OF WORKERS' AND RED ARMY DEPUTIES

Source: PSS vol 50

Dear Comrades! I have received your document no. 24962 with an extract from the resolution of the Presidium from 7.X.

I am compelled in all conscience to say that this resolution is so politically illiterate and so stupid that it makes one feel sick. "... The Presidium is compelled to relieve itself of responsibility..." This is how capricious young ladies act, not adult politicians. You will not relieve yourselves of responsibility, but will treble it instead.

If the Commissariat of Enlightenment does not answer to you and does not fulfil its duty toward you, then you are obliged to file complaints and with documents. You are not children, for you not to understand this.

When did you lodge a complaint? Where is the copy? Where are the documents and proofs?

And in my opinion, the entire Presidium and Vinogradova ought to be put in prison for a week for inaction.

If the Commissariat of Enlightenment "does not issue busts" (when did you demand them? from whom? copy and document? when did you appeal?), — you should have fought for your right. But "to relieve oneself of responsibility" is the manner of capricious young ladies and silly Russian intellectuals.

Forgive me for the frank expression of my opinion and accept communist greetings from one who hopes

that you will be taught a lesson by imprisonment for the inaction of authority, and from one deeply outraged by you

Lenin

12. X. 1918.

First printed in 1933

in Lenin Miscellany XXI

Printed from the manuscript